“Rain”: Depiction of American and Western European Imperialism
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====================================================================== Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 Vol. 19:5 May 2019 India’s Higher Education Authority UGC Approved List of Journals Serial Number 49042 ===================================================================== Maugham’s “Rain”: Depiction of American and Western European Imperialism Dr. B. Sudha Sai Assistant Professor, Department of English, G.I.T GITAM University, Visakhapatnam-530045 Andhra Pradesh, INDIA [email protected] ================================================================== Abstract The present article is an exploration of what happens when East meets West in a tropical setting. It is a study of the bizarre behaviour that results when a European temperament must face prolonged exposure to tropical climates and customs. It is one of the best short stories ever written by him, in its length and characterization along with resonance of real flesh and blood characters. One can find professionalism pervading the manner which he adopts for this story, the matter, theme, situations and the tropical settings to give the public exactly what they want. This story makes one marvel at its details, composition and ability to touch one’s soul with feelings. Even if one is not a fan of the short story form, feels after going through this story that Maugham’s writing is an exception. William Somerset Maugham is a worldly storyteller with incomparable knowledge of the humankind. His sense of insecurity as an orphan at an early age of ten, proper professional medical training, series of travels around the world, wartime experience in the secret service as a contact with spies during the Russian Revolution in 1917, interesting and varied life have benefitted him tremendously in his writing career. He as a result tends to be shy and more of a passive observer rather than an active participant in life. This further clearly explained some of the detachment that one feels in his various stories. His training as a doctor has taught him about the minute details of human suffering aptly conveyed through a dispassionate and systematic habit of observation. To add to this, his extensive, fearless and productive travels around the world have benefitted him a lot. The acquaintance which he obtained through travel with a diversity of standards, manners, morals rightly served the clinical attitude of his writing. In addition, his spell as a British spy in Petrogard charged with aborting the Bolshevik revolution taught him about politics at the very highest level of world significance. On the whole, all these have helped him to develop a keen eye for the minute details of life, which is further combined with his writing style especially of his short stories in such a way as to capture one’s attention. Among Maugham’s first collection of six perfectly competent pieces of short stories, ‘Orientation’, “Rain” is written first. It is one of his best-known short stories and before writing this he has disguised himself as a reporter to work for the British Intelligence in Russia during the Russian Revolution in 1917.As a result of the above reason, his stuttering and poor health hinders his ==================================================================== Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 19:5 May 2019 Dr. B. Sudha Sai Maugham’s “Rain”: Depiction of American and Western European Imperialism 449 writing career. He then happens to set off with a friend on a series of travels to Eastern Asia, the Pacific Islands and Mexico. The story is inspired by a missionary and a prostitute travelling along with the fellow passengers on a trip to Pago Pago. It all takes places in 1916, while a small group of English and American travellers are travelling from Honolulu to Apia on business and personal trips. An epidemic of measles breaks out suddenly and the disparate characters are forced to stay for a couple of weeks in Pago Pago in American Samoa of the South Pacific island of Tutuila. The clash between Pacific and European cultures informs every aspect of the story. For each Anglo-Saxon character, the tropics represent some different and alien reality. It so happens that the arrival of the ship in Pago-Pago has coincided with the beginning of the tropical rainy season, and it rains almost ceaselessly during the time period covered by the story. As it is announced that they wouldn’t be able to leave the island for at least ten days, the two couples, the Davidsons and the Macphails are temporarily detained from continuing their journey to Apia. The couples have though socialized on shipboard; happen to be very different from each other. The Davidsons have been absent from their medical and religious mission north of Samoa for a year. They are religious enthusiasts with a single aim in life to convert Samoans to Christianity. They see the South Seas as a vast pagan chaos waiting to be colonized and Christianized. The missionary’s wife too is in possession of a mind akin to his own. They are determined in their ways about the morals and habits of the local folks. They are at the same time a dreary, severe, self-righteous, authoritarian and serious pair. They associate with the Macphails as the rest of the ship’s passengers seem “fast” by comparison. Though the women folk find a lot of things in common to talk about, the men folk share only an association with medicine, for Dr. Macphail is a shy, reserved, contemplative man to whom religion means little. The doctor is a good-natured person and prefers to take things quietly. He does not poke his nose in other people’s affairs and his wife tends to follow his lead. The couple are weak but tolerant people with no fixed convictions. The Scottish doctor pair is travelling to Upolu by ship to recover from war wounds and accompanied on the long voyage by the missionary pair. Even the even-tempered Macphail is affected by the strange world of the tropics. Horrified by the unpleasantness and disease of Pago-Pago, he is driven to distraction by the unremitting rain. At this moment in the story, when all the passengers get stranded, the energetic Davidsons become active and take initiative. Davidson through his influence with the local Governor, is able to find them rooms in the establishment of Mr. Horn, a local trader. Mrs. Davidson, with characteristic efficiency, helps the rather unimpressive Macphails settle into the boarding house. She is determined to make the best of things in spite of the bleak environment. The rest of the passengers also find lodging in the same expansive house. At the house, they pass the time in conversation and other so- called proper activities while other residents pursue smoking, gambling, and dancing. Soon Macphail finds out that another of their shipmates, a second-class passenger named Sadie Thompson would be lodging there. Miss Sadie is a young woman with unrefined manners, vulgar appearance, improper speech, over-stylish dress and on the whole can be described as entirely sensual. For her the islands represent an escape, a place to begin life anew. She is actually travelling ==================================================================== Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 19:5 May 2019 Dr. B. Sudha Sai Maugham’s “Rain”: Depiction of American and Western European Imperialism 450 to a distant island where she has secured a job as a cashier. She is in-fact judged “fast” by Mrs. Davidson and Mrs. Macphail for dancing with the ship’s quartermaster at the shipboard party, the night before the landing at Pago-Pago. She happens to be a friendly, socially active and vivacious type. She seeks, in the following days, to enliven the depressing boarding house by giving frequent parties, loud and raucous affairs attended solely by the island’s sailors. One evening the couples’ dinner conversation is interrupted by loud noises coming from Sadie’s room on the floor below. As they try to talk over the dinner, Davidson is particularly troubled by her lack of what he considers decent and moral behaviour. He has a sudden revelation that Sadie, who boarded the ship at Honolulu, must be a denizen of Iwelei, that city’s notorious red-light district, which has only recently been shut down through the efforts of Hawaiian missionaries. Further, she must be plying her trade and continuing a life of sin here in Pago-Pago, just below them in her room. On the next day Mrs. Macphail and Mrs. Davidson walk together through the village. They happen to encounter Thompson on two occasions, and both times she calls at them insultingly. Mrs. Davidson feels they must have Mr. Horn, the local trader turn her out of his house. As it begins to rain again, everyone returns to the house, Davidson coming in late and drenched. At lunch, he sends the serving girl to ask for an appointment with Thompson. As she too agrees to meet with him, he determines to speak to her clearly about it. Mrs. Davidson on the other hand believes it to be a sheer waste of time, but Davidson is determined to extend Thompson the full mercy of God as he perceives it. He proceeds downstairs and spends a quiet hour with her. As usual, upon his return, he seems visibly agitated and angry on her rejection of his offer. Over the next three days whenever the Macphails or the Davidsons encounter Thompson, she is aloof. In the evenings, she takes no visitors but continues to play her gramophone. On Sunday, she begins to play her gramophone and the missionary complains to Horn about the impropriety of music on the Sabbath. Horn also insists that she should discontinue the music. After the incident, Davidson spends his time away from the house and all of them including Sadie get the feeling that he is concentrating his attention on some plan, though they are not sure about it.